In his important book Mythe et épopée Dumézil recently asserted that the god Dharma as he appears in the Māhabhārata is a continuation of the Vedic Mitra. Arguing “la substitution de Dharma à Mitra en tant que père de Yudhiṣṭhira” the French savant is of the opinion that “à l'époque de la rédaction définitive de l'épopée, dharma était certainement le mot le meilleur—ou le moins inadéquat—pour exprimer la substance du Mitra védique et prévédique, substance dont le Mitra épique avait été vidé”. Or, expressing himself briefly, Dharma—one of those so-called abstract figures of the “classical” pantheon which have no counterpart in the Veda—is Mitra “under a rejuvenated name”. Considering myself absolved from the obligation to give an account of the main relevant features of Dumézil's theories, which are well known to every student of Indo-European antiquity and of the comparative history of Indo-European religions, as well as from the necessity to resume my objections to some of his opinions and hypotheses, I shall limit myself here to a discussion of the question as to how far some form of identity of both divine figures can be substantiated or made acceptable.

The collection of Indian sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum includes a fine relief from Koṇārka. It is about 2 feet 6¾ inches (78·1 cm.) in height and depicts King Narasiṁha I (a.d. 1238–64), the founder of the celebrated Sun temple at Koṇārka in Orissa, sitting at the feet of his spiritual preceptor (Plate I). Acquired in the 19th century, this relief, which is carved in carboniferous shale, was long believed to be Nepalese. Havell, writing in 1911, notes that this sculpture is “said to have come from Nepal. Its date is uncertain. It appears to represent a Vaishnava adaptation of some old Buddhist jātaka story.” Some years later it was realized that the style of this sculpture belonged to that of the Eastern Ganga of the 13th century a.d., and that it represented the conversion of a kṣatriya noble to the worship of Viṣṇu by a Vaiṣṇava priest. The figure of the warrior sitting at the feet of the priest was identified as that of Narasimha I receiving spiritual instruction from his guru. This relief is one of a number showing scenes from the life of Narasimha which come from the great Koṇārka temple dedicated by him to the sun-god Sūrya. Of these, the panel already mentioned and another in New Delhi throw an interesting light on Narasiṃha's religious beliefs.

In Semitic languages, except Akkadian, the gentilitial adjectives are formed by adding a suffix -ī to the words from which they derive.

The importance of this period which marks the beginning of British rule in Ceylon is that its study furnishes an opportunity to observe the formation of incipient relationships between the government and the governed and to analyse their nature. The relationships entered into were with social groups and not with individuals. The social groups were not treated equally. The rule of law was not the basis of this government. The overriding desire of the government was to adapt its rule to the ideas and institutions of the indigenous society or, to be more accurate, the indigenous societies. In this process the caste system with its discrimination between caste and its strictures applied to the low castes was upheld and maintained by the government with all the resources at its command.

Fire and water are natural symbols, individually and in combination, in mythologies throughout the world. They assume a unique meaning in the Indian context, where tradition has attached particular significance to each element. Together, as an apparent conjunction of opposites, fire and water resolve some of the major paradoxes of Indian—especially Śaiva—mythology. The most striking instance of this symbolism is the image of the mare who wanders beneath the ocean, breathing fire.

There appears, on the face of it, little that could connect a Neapolitan soldier with a religious establishment in a small village in the Gurdaspur district of the Punjab in India. The connexion appears even more unlikely when that Neapolitan soldier happens to be General Paolo di Avitabile, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, of the Order of Merit of San Ferdinand of Naples, of the Durrani order of Afghanistan, Grand Cordon of the Lion and the Sun and of the Two Lions and Crown of Persia, of the Auspicious Order of the Punjab; and the religious establishment, the Vaishnava gaddī of Dhyanpur on which sat generations of mahants of a retiring disposition. But the connexion is none the less firm, as will be seen in the four documents presented in this article, and becomes easier of comprehension when one knows that General Avitabile was a military adventurer who rose in 1829 to the position of Governor of Wazīrābād in the Punjab under Mahārāja Ranjīt Singh, an area where the gaddī of Dhyanpur held some lands, free of revenue, from the local authority. The position becomes even more intelligible in the light of the fact that the Dhyanpur gaddī was of wide celebrity and had consistently received homage as much from the local population as from the Mahārāja.

My subject is the relation between Hindu religion and morality. After some comments on this relation in traditional Indian society, I describe changes in religious thought and practice in a village which has become part of the industrial city of Bangalore; and I use this local example to support general conclusions about the development of values of autonomy in Indian industrial society.

THE EDITORS OF THE version of Aśoka's first Minor Rock Edict discovered at Bahapur deserve our thanks for making this inscription available so quickly.1 It is unfortunate that by some error the conventional symbols for a doubtful reading [ ], e.g. [sā]tileke in line 2, and a suggested emendation ( ), e.g. (ā)hā for ahā in line 1, have all been printed as [ ], but a careful examination of the photographs of the rock and of the estampage enables most ambiguities arising from this error to be eliminated.

There are several points in the Bahapur version which merit attention, (a) By a faulty word-division the editors have printed amha maye in line 3, presumably understanding amha as an ablative form. It is clear from the other versions of the edict that we must have am here, cf. yam in line 2. If we adopt the word-division am hamaye, we obtain a hitherto unattested form of the instrumental of the first person pronoun. In line 2 of the Calcutta-Bairat2 inscription we find hamā as the equivalent of mamā (= genitive), which is found in lines 13 and 16 of RE3 V at Kalsi, lines 5 and 12 of SepE I and line 6 of SepE II at Dhauli, and line 12 of PE IV at Delhi-Topra; in line 3 of the Calcutta-Bairat inscription we find hamiyāye as the equivalent of mamiyāye (= instrumental), which is found in line 6 of SepE II at Jaugada; we now have hamaye as the equivalent of mamaye (= instrumental), which is found in line 4 of SepE II at Dhauli.

The earliest steps that led to the exchange of ideas, skills, and material goods between the cultures of the East and the West will probably never be more than a matter of surmise; but the literary and archaeological sources of information that start as a slender trickle at the beginning of the Christian era soon develop into a mighty stream and disclose a tale of human endeavour and ingenuity which few historians can fail to find fascinating and stimulating. During the last half-century or so dedicated scholars such as Pelliot have devoted their major research efforts to the meticulous consideration of the minutiae involved in the subject; and, more recently, Joseph Needham has contrived both to continue the work of such predecessors and to draw some of the major conclusions that are the fruits of basic research conducted in several disciplines. Probably the full story of these exchanges can never be told; for the evidence is sadly deficient; balanced inferences that rely on information gathered from both East and West are rarely possible; and, maddeningly enough, the political restrictions of the 20th century now prevent the application of the modern techniques of archaeology, geography, and anthropology in areas where they are most likely to be successful.

THE GALAPĀTA VIHĀRA rock inscription “is engraved on a rock by the side of the flight of steps leading to the shrines and monastic buildings at the Galāpata Vihāra situated about two miles south-west of the Rest-House at Bentoṭa (Bhīmatittha) in the Valallāviṭa Korale of the Southern Province’.1 The date of this inscription is placed by Müller2 and Bell3 in the reign of Parākramabāhu II (A.D. 1236–70), whereas Paranavitana put it back to the reign of Parākramabāhu I (A.D. 1153–87).4 This paper will examine the dates suggested by these earlier writers and interpret from a new point of view the evidence so far adduced, as well as fresh evidence, attempting thereby to establish with slight modifications the date suggested by Müller and Bell.

Although the rāgamāla miniatures are well known among art historians, scholars have hitherto paid little attention to the texts occurring on them. This remarkable fact might be attributed to the indifference of the art historians, for whom the chief interest lay in the paintings themselves. It should, however, be borne in mind that to those scholars who were also interested in the texts—as for instance O. C. Gangoly, who in the second volume of his famous book Rāgas and Rāginīs traced a number of Sanskrit dhyānas and Hindī dohās appearing on the front or reverse of rāga miniatures—the musical treatises to which these texts often refer were almost inaccessible, because most of them existed only in manuscript. Only very recently have a number of saṃgīta texts been edited.